Probe intensifies but no headway in bombing case

Sources say experts are examining records of phone calls made from Delhi to Lebanon, Iran, Israel and Pakistan 15 days prior to the terror attack

Investigators are yet to find any clue to the latest terror attack in Delhi, three days after a yet unidentified biker bombed an Israeli embassy car, injuring four people, sources said.

Officials said the investigation into the Monday bombing had gained pace but there was no breakthrough as Delhi Police, joined by an Israeli team of experts, was still piecing together the information it has gathered so far.

The attack on the embassy vehicle wounded the wife of an Israeli diplomat and three others after a motorcyclist stuck a magnetic bomb to the car setting it ablaze in a high security zone in Delhi, metres away from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's residence.

The sources said the scanning of footage from 15 CCTV cameras was not yet over but there was very little hope that the video clippings will give them any clue about the biker.

"We are still on it but it appears that the cameras were focussed not on the street on Aurangzeb Road (where the incident occurred)," an official said.

An officer of Delhi Police's anti-terror wing said the department and the Israeli team were examining the modus operandi of the bombing in a bid to trace if there was any connection with the botched attack in Georgia on Monday and three blasts in Thailand a day later.

Officials said investigators were yet to receive a forensic lab report of the Delhi blast to examine if the explosive in the sticky bomb was the same as the one used in the Georgian and Thailand attacks.

Sources also said that experts were examining the records of phone calls made from Delhi to Lebanon, Iran, Israel and Pakistan in the last 15 days prior to the bombing.

Investigators also conducted night-time checks at hotels and guest houses to see if any tourist from West Asia was staying or had stayed there in the last few days. But so far they had found nothing suspicious, sources said.

Israeli diplomat's wife stable, under observationThe wife of an Israeli diplomat who was badly injured in a terror attack is now stable and has started talking, doctors said yesterday.

"Tal Yehoshua Koren is stable, alert and talking but we are keeping her under constant observation," ND Khurana, medical superintendent at the Primus Hospital. He declined to say when she might be discharged.

"Such things can't be predicted and we will keep her till she has completely recovered," he said.

A motorcycle rider came from behind Koren's car, attached a magnetic bomb on its rear door and sped off. Within seconds, the car exploded and caught fire, badly injuring the woman who was on her way to the American Embassy School to fetch her children.

The driver too was injured but he managed to recover and pull her out of the burning car. He stopped an autorickshaw and reached the Israeli embassy, from where she was rushed to a hospital.